What happened to Alexios?


    The question came out of nowhere, but this was what Herakleia wondered as she lay in bed the morning after the banquet with Chaka Bey. Alexios had been gone for months after the Second Siege of Trebizond, returning to the city from his forays in the south with an entire century of battle-hardened soldiers, all warriors of farr whom he had seemingly conjured out of thin air. Yet that was what he had sworn to do, the last time Herakleia had seen him.


    I’ll come back with an army, he had said while the Latins were seizing Trebizond. I promise.


    In the mean time, he had changed. Now a faraway look was always in his eyes. He was silent and meditative when before he had been full of jokes and stories. The youth she had known even in the old world before they had arrived in Byzantium had skipped becoming a man and was now an elder, though on the outside he still looked young.


    Herakleia had confessed, upon reuniting with him, that for months she had been too busy fighting Trebizond’s Latin occupiers to even think about Alexios. During his long absence, she had believed she would never see him again. And in a sense, this was true.


    “I’ve seen things, been places,” he explained, after he came back to Trebizond. “Places I can’t explain.”


    Yet Alexios’s return awakened old feelings in Herakleia. She always found herself feeling wonderful around him, and had trouble focusing on anything else, though she was the busy strategos of Trebizond. Yet as she struggled to spend time with him, she began to realize that his old self was gone. Instead of the adventurer, teacher, commander, and friend she had known, he had become something like a monk, someone with little use for the world, a man indifferent to his own death, perhaps one who was even indifferent to the deaths of those he loved.


    “To love one is to love all,” she told him once, weeks ago, as they had been walking through the city and nodding and smiling and saying hello to almost everyone they saw. “To really love someone, I mean. It makes you fall in love with the universe.”


    “I can’t love the universe anymore,” he said. “Not after what I’ve seen.”


    “You won’t tell me what it was.”


    “I can’t. I wish I could. But it’s not something I can explain.”


    It had something to do with someone called Hermes Trismegistos. That was all Alexios would reveal. He was so frustrating. If Herakleia had never met him before, she would have thought him cold, distant, pretentious, maybe even useless. Yet she remembered who he used to be, and still hoped that she could somehow bring back the old Alexios. Taking him to her room, she removed her clothes and his, and slept with him. But the experience was empty. He put in no effort. Whatever love he had felt for her was gone. And what was the point of making love to someone who didn’t care about you?


    He had helped guide hundreds of people across the wasteland between Trebizond and Melitené, and he had even kept his two adopted children Basil and Kassia in good health, but it had cost him.


    You can change the world, but the world is also going to change you.


    Now that Alexios’s mission was fulfilled, he had released himself from his earthly duties. He hardly spoke at Workers’ Council meetings, spent too much time alone, and made no effort to see Herakleia, Gontran, Diaresso, and all his other friends—the witch named Miriai he’d brought back from the Iraki marshes, and Amina and her family of Domari acrobats. The only ones he cared about were Kassia and Basil, and the Aethiopian Isato of Zagwe, who even seemed to love him, and who was always cold toward Herakleia.


    When at last Alexios requested to be sent on another mission, ranting about some bad dreams he was having, how could Herakleia deny him? The Workers’ Council granted him a leave of absence and appointed Fatima the Amazon—a rising star in the uprising, and a young mother besides—to lead the army in his place. At dawn the next day, he was gone, riding one of Sedko Sitinits’s dromons to a distant place on the other side of the Euxine called Mingrelia, Alexios’s family joining him for the voyage.


    Herakleia barely even understood why Alexios had wanted to go to this place. Perhaps he didn’t understand, either. But with real desperation he insisted that he needed to leave, so she let him.


    Herakleia had worked hard yesterday with Chaka Bey to make herself forget Alexios’s departure. But last night, she had dreamed about him—he was simply there, that was all she remembered—and she woke up thinking of him, wondering where he was, what he was doing, what it would be like to be with him again when he was his old self.


    It would be wonderful.


    But there was always duty. Blink and the Romans would be crucifying Trebizond’s entire populace outside the walls, including the children. The usurper Narses was rumored to have brought back the old practice, though the church had banned it centuries ago.


    Speaking of the Romans—as Herakleia lay in bed, she thought of something Samonas had told her late last night, after all the guests had left.


    “We must find Chaka Bey’s levers of power,” he said. “We must push them.”


    That phrase, levers of power, stuck in Herakleia’s mind. Perhaps the idea of forging an alliance with Great Seljuk wasn’t so pointless after all. She had felt distraught after Alexios’s departure yesterday—so much so that she had hardly noticed Diaresso and Gontran leaving aboard the Paralos. She had put on a brave face despite the suspicion that she was wasting her time with Chaka Bey. But after sleeping all night, she had more energy, and felt more hopeful.


    Maybe we can really pull this off if we just focus on what we have in common. If we find Chaka Bey’s ‘levers of power.’


    Herakleia got up, washed, dressed, ate. Soon she was in the ducal chambers with Chaka Bey, Hummay, and Samonas, all sitting around a table discussing the alliance, each nursing a celadon cup of steaming hot Seran cha. A young Trapezuntine steward of the citadel named Nikolaos—a man obsessed with cleanliness—had poured this for them before joining them at the table, to Chaka Bey’s chagrin, for it was unseemly for servants to sup with their masters.


    “My master wishes to relate something,” Hummay began, after Chaka Bey had spoken to him. “When first he came to Trabzon, he thought the people deeply unimpressive. The buildings were impressive, yes, and especially that magnificent ship of yours, but it seemed as though someone else had built these things—a race of giants. And then to treat with a woman on military matters, diplomatic matters, matters of state—that was the height of ridiculousness. To even entertain such a possibility meant inviting all of our enemies to attack us, for they would think us weak for allying with a people foolish enough to choose a woman as their master.”


    Herakleia sipped her Seran cha to keep herself under control. Ibrahim Hummay continued.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    “My master Chaka Bey cannot lie. You know full well that he is not just here as a diplomat. Great Seljuk is curious about this place, and has heard much about it. Frankly, the military here seems too weak to defend it. The walled portion of the city is small, with too little room for the growing population—which has many cultures, languages—too many divisions, in other words—and too many women, children, elders, cripples, and beggars. And the army seems hardly present. There are few guards, and they are all women! All mothers with whining babes clinging to their arms and legs!”


    “We haven’t shown you the army yet,” Herakleia said. “But a demonstration, even a parade, could be arranged.”


    Hummay translated for Chaka Bey, who nodded, slurped at his Seran cha, and then gestured for more. Nikolaos stood and refilled his cup, the steaming liquid darkened and enriched by the tea leaves inside the celadon teapot. As instructed, Chaka Bey then placed a small chunk of sugar on his tongue—one which Nikolaos had earlier hacked from a sugarloaf—and slurped loudly at his near-boiling hot tea.


    “Mmm, güzel!” he exclaimed, his face reddening. “?ok güzel!”


    Chaka Bey then continued speaking, and Hummay translated. “An alliance on equal terms, you must understand, would be ridiculous. This is a small city with a smaller population, army, and navy. You have only survived so long because of the protection afforded by the mountains and the sea. You are not equal to Great Seljuk. Great Seljuk, in fact, could swat this place away, as one swats a fly. We have heard tell of how the Romans invaded this place, and then even the infidels of Farangistan, and how both were beaten. You must understand that were Great Seljuk to come here, there could be no victory for you. For we too have crushed the Romans and Farang many times—and their armies were far greater than the ones which attacked Trabzon. Indeed, much of our endless lands and many cities were won from your foes in battle. Few of their former subjects have missed them, for we ask little and give much. It would be the same here, if we attacked. Everything would be destroyed, the survivors enslaved, and then those survivors would curse your names, if they dared to think of you at all.”


    Herakleia and Samonas kept silent.


    “Yet you have not attacked us,” Hummay translated. “And despite our many differences, you have expressed the desire to ally with us—in order to destroy the Romans once and for all. We cannot deny that your boldness intrigues us. My master Chaka Bey likewise appreciates the humanity you have shown his consort, the beautiful and lovely Ay?e Khatun. But the alliance cannot be on equal terms. Instead, we are prepared to allow Trabzon to swear loyalty as vassal to Great Seljuk. You will fight for the Exalted Sultan Malik-Shah when called upon, and you will pay yearly tribute. In exchange, you will be granted a portion of the booty won in those battles in which you participate, and your ways here in Trabzon will be respected—on the condition that you do not seek to turn our own slaves, peasants, women, and children against us. There have been problems in our lands, with women leaving husbands, and tillers of the soil their masters, that they might live, work, and fight instead for Trabzon. From now on, when these people arrive here, you will send them back to their proper place, on pain of death.”


    “Impossible,” Herakleia said.


    Samonas glared at her, but Herakleia ignored him.


    “To become your vassal is to lose our independence,” she said. “It means losing who we truly are, and seems little different from being conquered. It seems like surrendering without a fight.”


    Chaka Bey spoke, and Hummay translated.


    “My master wishes to inform you that this place will be conquered by Great Seljuk one way or the other. The tides of history cannot be resisted forever. Should you become our vassal, no one would need be hurt, and your ways would be respected. We have many Christians in our lands, and Jews besides, and even people of which you likely possess no knowledge—”


    “You would respect our ways,” Herakleia said. “At least until you decided to change them. And you would use our army as a human shield, wouldn’t you? Isn’t that the traditional Seljuk tactic? Deploy the levies in the front and center—peasant soldiers who have been just called up, who have little training and less armor—and let the enemy exhaust themselves slaughtering them. Then the Seljuk cavalry—called sipahis, aren’t they?—swoop in from the sides and destroy the enemy. That’s how you would use my amazons. As bait. Meat for the grinder. Then, with them out of the way, Trebizond would be defenseless. Nothing could stop you from leaving a garrison here to keep the people under control. In time Trebizond would become just another city in the sultanate.”


    “My master wishes to ask if that would really be so terrible,” Hummay said. “In Seljuk cities, taxes are low. People can believe and do almost whatever they wish, so long as they respect the established order. This is an improvement on Roman government, is it not? I hesitate to even use the term ‘government’ to describe what the Romans do. Their ‘government’ is more like a system of organized theft undertaken at the point of a sword, one very much out of step with the times. And you cannot even raise an eyebrow in Roman lands without enraging the Roman government, for it is so insecure, so close to toppling.”


    “Seljuk government is only a minor improvement,” Herakleia said. “And one far behind what we have established here. We are happy to be your allies, but we can never be your vassals.”


    “As my master has said, only equals can be allies, and you are far from that.”


    Herakleia raised her hands. “We’re at an impasse.”


    Chaka Bey was grumbling more loudly now, and Hummay was struggling to translate. “My master wishes to ask the reason for his coming here. What is the purpose of speaking with one another if there can be no compromise?”


    Herakleia’s body was tense. She struggled to control herself, and even thought of drawing her sword, though of course she was unarmed.


    “Compromise for you means surrender for us,” she said.


    Just then, Ay?e Khatun entered the ducal chamber. Tended by her two Seran ladies-in-waiting Selcan and Aykiz, she bowed, smiled, apologized, and took tiny steps. This was the first time Herakleia noticed the princess’s peculiar manner of walking. Herakleia worried that Ay?e Khatun’s feet had been bound, but the princess’s shoes—red, black, turned up at the toes, almost like boats—were of a normal size.


    Ay?e Khatun’s clothes had also changed. She was clad in glimmering silver-blue silk, her face powdered white, her lips rouged, her eyes lined with kohl, her black hair done up in a large bun that seemed to hover behind and above her head. Now she looked as though she had just arrived from Sera—that a flying serpent had carried her straight from a Seran palace to the ducal chamber. Nothing about her looked Seljuk at all. She had transformed.


    She also transformed the grimace on her husband’s face. Herakleia almost expected Chaka Bey to growl something about how women were forbidden to interrupt this manly business, but instead he seemed to melt at the sight of her. He smiled and squinted, his eyes shone, and he leaped to his feet to help her into a seat at the table, which Nikolaos brought for her, at the same time pouring her a cup of Seran cha. She thanked him in Roman, and the servant bowed, blushed, and then sat back down. Herakleia reflected—with not a little jealousy—that this woman enchanted everyone. One glance from her could overthrow a city; another could overthrow a nation. Wherever she went, all eyes fell on her and lingered.


    “I’m sorry to interrupt,” Ay?e Khatun said. “I only wished to join my husband. Please pretend I am not here.”


    “That is quite impossible, my dear,” Samonas said.


    Silent until now, Samonas had nonetheless said what everyone was thinking. And although he could never touch Ay?e Khatun, Herakleia believed he was curious about the ladies-in-waiting, Selcan and Aykiz. She caught him eyeing them; Selcan even blushed and avoided his gaze. Samonas was a eunuch, but he was only cut. So far as Herakleia knew, everything else was intact.


    The room was silent. No one even joked about how there was nothing to say.


    “Please do not tell me I have spoiled the mood,” Ay?e Khatun said.


    “You haven’t,” Herakleia said. “The mood was spoiled before you arrived.”


    “Whatever do you mean?” Ay?e Khatun said.


    Herakleia looked at Chaka Bey, then explained the diplomatic impasse to Ay?e Khatun. Her husband permitted this.


    He’s sexist except for his wife, Herakleia thought.


    “My husband is pushing you too hard,” Ay?e Khatun said. She spoke sternly in Seljuk to Chaka Bey, who blushed, looked away, and stuttered a response.


    Whipped, Herakleia thought.


    Ibrahim Hummay bowed to Herakleia. “My master wishes to apologize for his earlier behavior, and states that Great Seljuk would be delighted to conclude an anti-Roman alliance with Trabzon.”


    Herakleia’s leadership XP increased, and her mouth opened. She looked at Samonas, thinking: levers of power.


    Yet after lunch, when Ay?e Khatun asked Herakleia for a tour of the city, the strategos would begin to think that her feeling of triumph here in the ducal chamber had been premature.